Under the Black Flag
by Abaigh
Summary: What drives a young woman from such a background to take on the perilous life under the black flag?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer (to apply to entire length of fic): I would love to have my very own Jack Sparrow to cover in Reddi-Whip and give a tongue bath to, but, try as I might, he does not appear. Ergo, I do not own him, or anything connected to Pirates of the Caribbean.

I own: this plot, Jane, Captain Alejandro Fernandez, Grace and Marie and a couple of background characters, who will all appear later. You can have the background characters, they aren't very important.

**Under the Black Flag**

_For my friends, without whom, I would never see my horizon. Eye loff j00 all!_

**Prologue**

Port Royal lies on the tip of a narrow spit to the South East of Jamaica like an arm flung out from the island. In 1660s, there are 2,850 people, white and black, living there. Here, on of the principal treasure ports in Jamaica, or even the Spanish main – that hot and humid stretch of the American coast which curves in a great arc around the southern rim of the Caribbean Sea – buccaneers and pirates infest the streets, making use of the many carpenters and sailmakers, drinking the rum, and paying the whores for their services. The governors of the island actively encourage them to use Port Royal as their base, hoping that this swarm of heavily armed ships will discourage the Spanish and French from attempting to capture the island, which proves a remarkable success.

This suits the pirates. Jamaica is well placed as a base from which to launch attacks on the Spanish settlements in Central America or the trading ships passing to and fro among the West Indian islands. Port Royal provided them with a fine harbor to moor, and more than enough facilities to careen and repair their vessels. During this time, pirates had a field day.

But it was not just the pirates. Across Jamaica, British settlers are farming the Africans over to work on the sugar plantations. Work is hard; most slaves are being forced to work from four o'clock to sunset. One worker would yield up to 6 tonnes of raw crop everyday. Slaves are burnt, strangled and otherwise tortured in an effort to terrorize them into obedience. The owners of these plantations are very rich and live to the height of splendour, in full ease and plenty, being sumptuously arrayed and attended on and served by their slaves. For most, it is a life to be lived.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

The air in the house was filled with the sweet syrup smell of boiling sugar; it clung to every surface, to clothes and hair, the whole building reeked of it. A few metres away, the boiling house still steamed in the late evening – the roaring furnaces still lit under the vast copper vats, heat searing through the bodies of men and women that scampered through the clouds of swirling vapour, like spirits. The screams of men as they were doused with molten sugar, sticking to the skin and boiling it as if it were water, echoed across the plantation to the house. Jane had all but gotten used to the burning in the back of her throat as she breathed in yet more of the tang of sugar floating on air, but could not block out the screams of her parents slaves dying horrifically, one by one, night and day, continuously, all through the year.

Almost drowning in a muslin robe her father had bought her for her last birthday, Jane watched Mary, her chambermaid, fuss over candle and curtains, muttering to herself as she always did.

"Exciting day, miss?" Mary asked aloud, patting down the bed clothes for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I 'eard the More's son proposed. Now there's a fine man, miss."

Jane sniffed quietly and turned away.

"Very fine man, miss," Mary continued wistfully, "Why, any woman would be glad to be promised to 'im, miss."

"You may go, Mary." Jane said shortly, waving her away from the candle as she began to fuss over it again.

"Thank ye, miss. I'll be in in the mornin' for yer breakfast and to make yer ready." Mary backed out, closing the door with a slight click. As soon as she heard the tell-tale sounds of her chambermaid bustling down the stairs, Jane flung herself out of bed to the window to watch the troop of slaves, covered in mud and sugar from head to toe, winding their way back to their huts, as she always did.

A new experience, an unusual challenge, she mused, chin in hand, not something to despair over. It did not matter that she, at fifteen, had much of her life left to live, which would now be cut short to make way for William More and probably a few of his heirs. There would be time for living. That was not important when the essential thing was that she was alive, nearly sixteen years old, and the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in all Jamaica. There were plenty of women who would love to be in her position.

Compared to that, did it really count that she felt a strange burning knot in her throat everytime she tried to imagine her childhood back in England, and notice with a pang that she could remember it only vaguely – all memories of friends and games were but distant recollections of an excited passion rising somewhere behind her forehead, spilling forward in glorious laughter. 'You took it for granted, you stupid, stupid girl,' she muttered to herself – after all, who needed a boring old country house when you could move to a glorious plantation in Jamaica, where the air smelt of sugar and you could run through the port and see pirates everywhere? 'Serves you right,' she continued, 'because now you don't have either.'

She dropped the friends and happiness she had in England instantly for romantic excitement here, in this awful place, where the reality was sugar that seemed to stick everywhere and brutal whippings and torture of slaves. And pirates that stalked through the port, tolerated by the Navy…The Navy, who smiled at her…Thomas Fleetwood, who smiled a lot at her, his calloused hands on hers, her lips brushing his with a silent yearning. It was difficult now to think which was the worst part: that maddening urge to let all emotions that had been bottled up for years spill forth in tears and screams, demanding never to marry this poncy More's son or the crazy longing to be back in her own library in England, holding a book in her hands, letting her hands glide over the pages, the innocent structure of words on paper, entrapping her in every fantasy world she could wish for.

Where were they now?

Where was her Thomas? In her books, the hero would fight through all adversaries and meet his love under her window, take her away to live in happiness with him forever. Surely her Thomas was a hero. Surely, surely, there was some hero waiting underneath her window, waiting for some sign to call out to her, to proclaim his undying love for her, to whisk her away from the jaws of her family and the teeth of duty to love in freedom away from 'must' and 'obliged'.

No, she admonished. That was not love. William More was love. Love was a heart that hurt – not metaphorically, but physically – cringing and writhing under bites of pain. A body so heavy with a feeling of leaden weight that it was an effort to rebel against a narrow throat that tried to force you to sob every time you breathed – love was making alliances, money with money, and putting up with it's consequences.

She did not think of what love could be; a soft voice and gentle hands that ran over shivering skin, a mop of rebel blond hair, sticking up in all places, like a handful of straw, a deliciously warm body pressed against her own. Love so free and unchecked was not worthy of upper crust society. It was quickly rooted out and crushed under foot.

Lightening cracked the sky ominously as she left the window and a sheen of rain began to fall as she returned to her bed. There was neither time nor place for this love. Curling underneath the warmth of her bed clothes, she allowed a fresh rush of tears to soak her pillow, which would have to be forgotten by morning. She would go out for a walk to Port Royal, admire the ships, and return for dinner with William More, who would assure her he and her father had sorted out the financial aspects of their wedding and she had no reason to worry herself.

Her fantasy worlds had no place now.

A/N: I've tried not to make Jane a Mary-Sue. Jack Sparrow comes later, before you ask.


End file.
